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Kor'sarro Khan
' 3rd Brotherhood and 51st Master of the Hunt]] Kor'sarro Khan is the Khan (Captain) of the 3rd Brotherhood (Company) of the White Scars Space Marine Chapter and is also the Chapter's current Master of the Hunt. Fierce to the point of savagery, bold to the point of recklessness and brash to the point of insubordination, he is nonetheless one of the Chapter's most accomplished warriors. The Khan of the 3rd Brotherhood has faced many daunting foes and great challenges during his service with the Chapter, including facing an Alpha Level psyker on Delta Arbuthnot where the entire planet's population of Ratling agri-serfs was mind-controlled by the psyker and forced to raise arms against Imperial landowners, using their shovels against guards with Autoguns. Another such battle was for the Third Moon of Woebetide where, as a Scout Marine many solar decades previously, Kor'sarro fought the Warp entities known as Enslavers. Ten thousand mind-controlled Cadians were psychically forced to march across a minefield 100 kilometres wide under fire from the White Scars, Red Hunters and Celestial Lions Chapters. Kor'sarro Khan's greatest accomplishment, however, was successfully bringing the Hunt for Voldorius to its conclusion. Kor'sarro Khan stood amongst the most lauded heroes of the Imperium. As direct and unyielding as a well-forged blade, the Khan is a warrior of violent determination with no time for the niceties of diplomacy or courtly manners. He is a master huntsman whose every thought is bent toward decapitating his oath-sworn prey. Whether mounted upon his famed Assault Bike, Moondrakkan, or hurtling into battle in the armoured hold of a Rhino or Stormraven gunship, the Khan runs his prey to ground with the unfailing tenacity of a born killer. When battle is inevitably joined, his revered blade, Moonfang, whistles out in a silver arc to claim the head of his prey with unerring lethality. Yet the Khan's barbaric exterior hides a deep spirituality and strategic acumen that makes him a far deadlier opponent than he might at first seem, for he is also an inspiring leader and cunning tactician. Kor'sarro Khan personifies the tip of the hunter's spear, the hardened point of the blade, and his warriors follow him with a devotion bordering upon worship. History Chapter, wielding his Power Sword Moonfang]] Kor'sarro Khan is the White Scars Chapter's 51st Master of the Hunt -- an individual honorific since the days of the Chapter's Primarch Jaghatai Khan and a title that is unique to the White Scars Chapter. Above all other Astartes Chapters, it is the White Scars who choose to seek out the blood of an adversary who, through a quirk of fate or artifice, has faced them in battle and lived to tell the tale. The White Scars will not allow such enemies to revel in the small victory of their survival. Every 25 standard years, at the height of the Rites of Howling, the Master of the Hunt is despatched to seek out one such foe and bring their severed head back to the White Scars fortress-monastery on Chogoris as a trophy and proof of their deed. Kor'sarro can draw upon many resources as a Khan of the 3rd Brotherhood in pursuit of his prey, and often embarks upon a hunt with companions chosen from the Battle-Brothers under his command. These pursuits have been known to take solar months or sometimes Terran years as the Master of the Hunt tracks his quarry from warzone to warzone and world to world across the width and breadth of the galaxy. Though at times the hunt may be postponed as wars and other more pressing duties for the Chapter interfere, it is never abandoned. Sooner or later, the quarry is tracked, cornered and beheaded. Kor'sarro Khan has brought nearly a score of hunts to a successful conclusion over his years as Master of the Hunt, beginning with his first such victory on the 3rd moon of the gas giant Mai IX. Some of the White Scars' greatest foes, such as the Daemon Prince Kernax Voldorius and the Eldar Corsair Varaliel, had evaded previous Masters of the Hunt only to have their heads severed by Kor'sarro's blade. His other targets have included the Daemon Prince known as Doomrider, and the Chaos Lord Paramyx of the Blighted Claw warband of Chaos Space Marines, who barely escaped with his life during the daemonic invasion of the Agri-world of Gehöft. When Kor'sarro returns to Chogoris it is a great time of celebration and moonlit feasting, for it marks the passing of another hated nemesis of the Chapter. When the carousal is done, Kor'sarro surrendered his grisly trophy to the High Chaplain, who took up a brand from the flames and burned the eyes from the dead skull. As the flesh burned and peeled, the hymn of vengeance was sung, and the quarry's name was struck from the roster of the hunt. The head itself was masked in silver and set upon a lance, and laid upon the highest walls of the White Scars' fortress, destined forever to stare out with its hollow gaze over the approach to the fortress-monastery. The White Scars' citadel is high in the Khum Karta Mountains of Chogoris; the road is long, yet the silvered heads of the slain line every pace of its passage. Escape from Cano'var In 813.M41, at Nemesor Zahndrekh's instruction, the Necron armies of the Tomb World of Gidrim invaded the T'au world of Cano'var, routing the planetary defenders after two solar weeks of campaigning. The Necron victory proved short-lived, however. A demi-company of White Scars, led by Kor'sarro Khan, arrived on Cano'var, pursuing a now-obsolete punitive mission against the previous T'au inhabitants. An overwhelming volley of Gauss Weapons fire destroyed the White Scars' Thunderhawks moments after they landed, leaving Khan and his Battle-Brothers to fight a bold, but doomed, series of hit-and-run battles. Almost all of the White Scars were slain on the Uzme Plateau, but Zahndrekh commanded that Kor'sarro Khan be spared and imprisoned. So did Kor'sarro begin a peculiar period of captivity beneath the surface of Cano'var. Zahndrekh treated him with honour, through few of the other Necron Lords even acknowledged his presence. At a bizarre feast, where food was placed before Zahndrekh and his court but went uneaten, Kor'sarro learned he was but one of a dozen prisoners. With the desire for freedom outweighing any insult or rivalry, the Khan and the other captives conspired to escape. The Necrons were slow to react and so the breakout went well at first. Only when Vargard Obyron took command did things go badly for the escapees. Several of the fugitives were slain by Obyron's Warscythe, leaving only Kor'sarro and an Eldar Ranger by the name of Illic Nightspear to fight on, and the latter swiftly received a blow that sent him sprawling from the fight. Thus did the battle devolve into a duel atop bleeding bodies and broken machines. Khan's sword was quicker and guided by a desperate fury, but Obyron's undying machine body repaired any damage within only moments. Little by little, the Khan tired, and the sweeping Warscythe came closer to connecting with each swing. Finally, one of the Vargard's blows was too swift for the Khan to evade -- the Warscythe sliced through his armour and deep into his flesh. But before Obyron could finish his foe, there was an intervention from an unexpected source. Unknown to either combatants, Zahndrekh has been watching the fight from afar and, impressed by the Khan's skill and bravery, ordered Obyron to stand aside and let him leave. Dragging the crippled Nightspear behind, the Khan finally escaped to the surface, found a still-functioning T'au spacecraft and left Cano'var far behind. Kor'sarro and Nightspear parted ways shortly after, the Eldar to his Craftworld and the White Scar to Chogoris. Shortly after the Khan's return to his Chapter planet, Nemesor Zahndrekh and Vargard Obyron were added to the Scrolls of Venegance, their names to be put forward as possible quarry for the next Great Hunt of the White Scars Chapter. Hunt for Voldorius The Hunt for Voldorius was the search by Kor'sarro Khan, Captain of the 3rd Brotherhood of the White Scars Chapter of Space Marines, for the Daemon Prince Kernax Voldorius, the warleader of a particularly insidious Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marines warband. In 865.M41 Kor'sarro Khan drove Voldorius from his foremost stronghold on the Hive World of Modanna. By 871.M41, Kor'sarro Khan tracked Kernax Voldorius to the planet Quintus. The White Scars discovered no mere warband, but a whole planet of Traitors and Renegades ready to stand against them, but Kor'sarro was not deterred. Upon making planetfall, Kor'sarro Khan found unexpected allies in the form of Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike and the Raven Guard 3rd Company. Despite the millennia-old rivalry that exists between their two Chapters, the White Scars and Raven Guard put aside their differences and joined forces to defeat Voldorius' armies; Shrike and Kor'sarro slew the Daemon Prince in the streets of the planetary-capital of Mankarra. With the defeat of the Chaos forces and Voldorius dead by his hands, Kor'sarro Khan announced his sixteenth Great Hunt to be at an end. Claiming Voldorius' head as a gloried prize, Kor'sarro Khan left Quintus and returned to a hero's welcome at the White Scars' fortress-monastery of Quan Zhou on Chogoris (a world officially known to the Administratum as Mundus Planus) where it was set on a pike on the road to the White Scars' fortress, so that all might know that no foe of the Chapter ever truly escapes the Emperor's justice. Hunt for the Bloodied Talon In 943.M41 after the White Scars' Great Khan Kyublai went missing in combat with the Drukhari Kabal of the Bloodied Talon, Kor'sarro sought vengeance against the sadistic xenos. He returned two solar years later with the severed head of the Kabal's Archon, Kirared, along with the heads of one thousand other Dark Eldar warriors. Hunt for Shadowsun In 999.M41, over the course of the war for Agrellan, Kor'sarro Khan swore a blood oath to take the head of Commander Shadowsun, the Tau Commander who served as Supreme Commander of the T'au Empire Third Sphere Expansion's primary expeditionary force. His hunt was remorseless, turning the speed and aggression of the White Scars to the solitary goal of destroying the mastermind behind the T'au's war machine. Kor'sarro met Shadowsun in battle several times, engaging her in person at Acacia Hive and taking battle to her personal cadre at Blackshale Ridge. Despite his best efforts, Shadowsun survived, excelling herself in both strategy and tactics and proving a worthy opponent even in close quarters combat. Over time, however, the White Scars inflicted such horrendous casualties upon the Tau leader's personal cadre that he cool demanour was replaced by simmering fury. Perhaps overconfident after securing victory upon Agrellan, she soon took the bait offered to her -- the Knight World of Voltoris. There, she walked into a trap set around House Terryn's ancestral fortress. In the resulting ambush, Kor'sarro Khan wounded Shadowsun grievously, coming within a hand's breadth of decapitating her with his sword. Once more, however, she escaped. The Khan's great oath had yet to be fulfilled, and upon Prefectia, he would pursue it more determinedly than ever. After failing to do so once more following the T'au's great victory during the Prefectia Campaign, Kor'sarro next hunted the Tau Supreme Commander during the Second Agrellan Campaign, again without success. Though he would have remained no matter the cost until his oath was fulfilled or he was slain by the T'au, a call from the White Scars Chapter Master Jubal Khan came from Chogoris. The White Scars homeworld was under attack by the Heretic Astartes of the Red Corsairs and their allies among the Forces of Chaos as part of Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade. With little choice, the Khan and the surviving Astartes of his 3rd Fellowship were forced to quite the Damocles Gulf War Zone and return home to face a new enemy. Indomitus Era and becoming a Primaris Marine. He now possesses the Psyber Berkut Anzuq.]] After the birth of the Great Rift Kor'sarro Khan arrived at a critical juncture during the war to reclaim the White Scars homeworld of Chogoris from an invasion by the Red Corsairs Heretic Astartes and daemons. Kor'sarro led a charge that threw back the Chaos forces and reclaimed the planet. However, he sought to gain revenge upon the forces of Chaos for all they had done to the Chapter, and so he accepted the Rubicon Primaris transformation into a Primaris Space Marine. Afterwards the White Scars Chapter Master Jubal Khan, grievously tortured by the Red Corsairs and thought to be suffering mental distress, granted Kor'sarro his Psyber Berkut named Anzuq. While Kor'sarro accepted the gift, many believe this the cybernetic lifeform may be used by Jubal to spy on Kor'sarro's future activities on behalf of the Chapter. Wargear *'Artificer Armour' *'Bolt Pistol' *'Frag Grenades' *'Krak Grenades' *''Moondrakkan'' - The Assault Bike Moondrakkan was originally commissioned for the 4th Master of the Hunt. This ancient bike is a relic of the White Scars Chapter and has served as a versatile mechanical steed for numerous Masters of the Hunt over many millennia. Fitted with powerful engines, bulletproof tires and a formidable armament, Moondrakkan has been lovingly maintained by the Chapter's Techmarines and have served the Masters of the Hunt well in their neverending quests to chase down their quarry in the midst of a hunt. *''Moonfang'' - Moonfang is an ancient Power Sword and revered relic of the White Scars Chapter. This formidable blade has spilled much blood and the ichor of numerous Apostates, Heretics and xenos since its forging. Sources *''Codex Adeptus Astartes - Space Marines'' (8th Edition), pp. 101, 138 *''Codex Supplement: White Scars'' (8th Edition), pp. 32-33, 36-37 *''Codex: Necrons'' (5th Edition), pg. 25 *''Codex: Space Marines'' (8th Edition) (Revised Edition), pg. 20 *''Codex: Space Marines'' (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 72, 133, 138, 266-267, 324, 346, 351, 353 *''Codex: Space Marines'' (5th Edition), pp. 42-43, 94 *''Hunt for Voldorius'' (Novel) by Andy Hoare *''Kor'sarro Khan: Huntmaster'' (Short Story) by Graeme Lyon *''Master of the Hunt'' (Audio Drama) by Josh Reynolds *''War Zone Damocles: Kauyon'' (7th Edition), pp. 5-8, 17-22, 99-101 *''War Zone Damocles: Mont'ka'' (7th Edition), pp. 3-113 *Warhammer Community - Apocalypse Mega-battle and Warhammer 40,000 Preview! (Image) es:Kor'sarro Khan Category:K Category:Characters Category:Imperial Characters Category:Space Marines Category:White Scars Category:Primaris Space Marines